This Whole Memory Thing
by EleanorRigbee
Summary: He talks and Sam listens and they remember, sorta...What Dean knows, he knows by heart.[Dean, Sam, mothers and memories]


**Disclaimer: Don't own the SN, just playing with the boys**.

**A/N: This is my first attempt at writing SN, had a hard time trying to find a voice for Dean. Anyways, Dean's PoV, the only real time reference is to the pilot. Read and drop me a review. Thanks.**

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There isn't much he remembers about his mother.

Sam stopped asking after the first nine years because talking about mom only ever made Dad's mouth come down in a hard line and Dean's fell into a frown, no matter how much Dean tried to hide it. Because Dean was only a child when it happened (and he knows it sometimes it startles Sam, thinking of him as anything but what he is now, let alone as a little kid) and Sam has the ability to be infuriatingly understanding about the things that are out of his big brother's control (despite the fact that Dean will never admit that there are any such things).

But what Dean knows, he knows by heart.

He knows that Mom's hands smelled like sugar cookies but her hair smelled like lemons—creating this warm confection within Dean's memories, a single moment where he can see his mother bathed in the careful light that dripped through the kitchen window, with flour on her clothes.

He knows Mom liked to laugh, that she liked to make Dad laugh too, that sometimes she would make Dad dance with her on the porch because she like her wind chimes better than the radio.

He knows that she read Stuart Little to Sammy and him when Sammy was still inside her (in fact he has always credited his brother's ability with books to this memory, because he knows that it started in the womb).

He remembers Mom with a daisy chain in her hair—and her hair was golden and her eyes were Dean's eyes and Sam's eyes and impossible to describe, no matter how often Sammy asked or how hard Dean tired—and its no wonder that he connects his mother with sunlight as often as he does with fire.

Sometimes, Dean doesn't care that his memories are limited and broken at the seams; he doesn't care that he can't remember what his mother's hands felt like or whether she tucked him in completely or just pulled the blankets up to his chin before kissing his brow. Sometimes Dean doesn't care because he knows that compared to Sammy, he has a gold mine stashed inside his head—and though he goes through the majority of his life wishing there was some way to spill the images and sounds and sensations from his own head into his little brother's, there are still times when Dean is selfish and human, when Mary was his mother first, and he doesn't mind hording away his shambled collection of the life they lost.

"What was she like?" Sam asks for the first time in a long time on the drive back to Stanford after their stint in Jericho and Dean thinks he might go clear off the road at the impact of his brother's words.

He risks a glance at his brother, and notes that Sammy's hair is mess and his eyes are wide and round (and his mother's eyes in the reflected light that dabbles in the front seat), and his impossibly long frame seems cramped and out of place in the front of the Impala—Dean almost stops to wonder if it always looked so perfectly awkward. "What was Mom like?" Sam asked again, almost as though Dean could have possibly missed it the first time and Dean feels his knuckles protest his tightening grip on the steering wheel.

This would probably qualify as a chick flick moment of giant proportions and Dean should probably say something and take a deep breath, because dude, he can handle this, but the truth is he'll always be slightly unhinged about their mother in such a way that even John will never properly understand. "She smelled like lemons." He says slowly, because Sammy hasn't asked in years and his memories are rusty on his tongue in a way they never are inside his mind and he has to stop and brush off the cobwebs in order to make them presentable to his baby brother. "And she liked to laugh."

He talks and Sam listens and they remember, sorta.

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**End**


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